


glassy skies

by batwngs



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Under the Red Hood
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-08-20 23:44:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20236345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/batwngs/pseuds/batwngs
Summary: “we are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”or the one where the gotham night sky reminds jason of some haunting memories





	glassy skies

**Author's Note:**

> Jason Todd Birthday Week 2019 – Memories (2018 prompt)

Everything was slow. 

The stars never felt closer as he crashed into the velvet of the night. The sound of falling echoed like the breaking of waves, submerging head-first into the darkened ocean. It was like he was pushed off the ledge and into the deep end of a pool, falling through clouds and layers of sky until the harsh waves finally hugged him. He was being dragged under by waves upon waves, slowly drifting to the bottom of the sea where the light of the moon shined bright despite the vast darkness. The shattered glass dazzled like the thin veil of white water brushing against the shore, like asteroids and meteors that burned too vibrantly as they fell to the ground with him. The world was moving past him, and all Jason could do was fall. 

He had fallen a great distance, what felt greater than the space between the sun and earth. Jason laid on his back atop of a bed of broken glass. The ground was cold and damp from when it had rained earlier, before the sun set. The glass ceiling above was badly damaged, a gaping hole from where he fell at its center. 

His arm was swelling with pain, as was his leg. They were definitely broken, he thought, with a concussion too. His body was burning with cuts and forming bruises. Wound upon wound upon wound—he lost count of how many places seared with pain when he tried to move off the ground. The damaged, imitation stars pierced him from all angles, consuming his body and leaving only a sharp, numbing pain. It was getting hard to breathe. Jason could feel a pool of his own blood dying the cement and shards of glass beneath him crimson red. His muscles weighed heavy with a familiar sting. 

Jason tried to distract himself from the screeching aches of his blood and bones. Anything to get his mind off the shattered state he was in. 

The only place he could look at was the sky. Gotham’s skyline made it difficult to see the stars, but not impossible. He could see the tail of Cygnus, flying through the half-lit night. That bright star was always easy for Jason to find, even when he was scavenging the streets near Crime Alley. It always seemed to be a constant in his ever-changing life—a star that could never fall, a bird with wings that never failed. It’s been a while since he last saw the stars like this. 

Somewhere in between the stars, however, was a thunderous dark. A void of plaguing memories. The sound of distant sirens filled the night air, slowly shifting into that of an unforgiving ticking, a menacing laugh. Everything was sharp and painful. The night sky above him looked too much like that night. Jason knew he was in Gotham, he knew that, but both his body and the stars above betrayed him. 

And suddenly it wasn’t the Gotham night sky with it’s illuminated skyline anymore. It was Ethiopia, with the sun blazing and the heat thick in the air of the warehouse. He could taste the iron of the crowbar hitting his head, the metal and his blood mixing as he felt the ache of every strike accompanied with that shrill laugh. The world was dizzy. Moving fast and blurring beyond recognition. Hazy and foggy like expired film. It was hard to breathe, getting harder and harder with every blistering hit. Stinging and agonizing. The floor underneath him was stained red, growing crimson until even the walls reflected blood. Then and now, it still felt the same, it still burned the same.

_Tick_. The Ethiopian sands rubbed harshly against his fleshy wounds. He could feel the dirt and blood, his blood, trapped under his finger nails. _Tick_. Is this how Icarus felt? Glass shards trapped in his throat, robin wings clipped and burned from soaring too high towards hope? _Tick_. But he doesn’t want to call these foreign stars home. _Tick_. 

Batman’s coming, Jason thought, Batman’s coming. This time Batman’ll make it, he won’t die again.

Then everything was on fire. His bones, muscles, and blood—he could feel the scorching heat of a world falling apart around him. White hot and suffocating black smoke. It felt like falling of another kind, dying and having life slip through one’s fingers. Hope shattering like glass after impact, like buildings after an explosion.

It was all dark, the stars blinding him. He could still hear rapid footsteps. Running. _“Jason”_ someone called, distant like stars. He swore he heard his name called closer than what was echoed and lost between the sands and stars of his haunting memories. He won’t die again. 

It all went silent, it all went red. 

He won’t die again.


End file.
